Wednesday, October 27, 2010

It's been cold the past couple of days and the snow from Sunday night is still on the mountain. Northstar started making snow the last night as well. May get one more night of snowmaking before the overnight temps aren't as cold due to the incoming storms.

The storm first storm for this weekend is already approaching the coast. The storm is going to hit the coast and then stall out until Friday night. That means lots of rain at the coast and clouds at best for us the next 2 days. Friday night into Saturday the storm finally moves inland over the area. Snow levels will drop to or below lake level and models are in fairly good agreement that the mountain could pick up around 3-6 inches of snow.

The second storm moves through on Sunday. This is the storm that we have been watching for the last couple of weeks as a potential to bring a decent snow to the area for Halloween. All of the models have had a dramatic change of course on the storm in the past 2 days. The storm now looks to weaken quite a bit as it comes onshore with the heaviest precip staying to our North. As of right now I am thinking some light snowshowers for Sunday. We will have to watch the storm come in because a slight shift to the South and we could have additional snow accumulations.

Starting on Monday we will start to warm up quickly as a ridge builds in. There is a monster storm forecasted to go up the East Coast which will draw down lots of cold air over the East with a big trough, which will cause a big ridge over the West. Good news right now is the the NAO is not forecasted to go negative, so there is nothing to hold the trough over the East. That should allow it to move off the coast and allow our ridge to move East by the end of next week re-opening the storm door. The PNA is forecasted to strong positive next week and then drop negative the following week. That would increase our chances of the jetstream returning for week 2.

Looking long-range I would expect to see some storms approach by the end of next week into the weekend. Beyond that I am not trusting the models for now. I don't see anything that points to big storms but I also don't see anything that points to a big ridge either. I don't see any big cold outbreaks on the horizon, but we should get cold enough by the end of next week to resume snowmaking. Stay tuned........BA